My First Bowl

[Ron Mitchell]

This is my first attempt a turning a bowl. I saw this online and I wanted to see if i could do it. http://bobhamswwing.com/Articles/economy/TRUE%20ECONOMY.htm The base is 2-3/4" and it stands 2-3/4" high and 8" at the lip of the bowl. Its made of Bubinga and Birds Eye Maple. It took me around nine hours to complete. I now realize I need to take a few bowl turning classes to improve my skills and hopefully cut down on the time it takes from start to finish. I wish I made the base a little larger so that it wouldn't have such a funnel shape to it.;)
I finnished it with three coats of walnut oil and three coats of salad bowl finnish.

Thanks for taking a look...
all comments are welcome

[Mark Pruitt]

Great job! Interesting design.

[Neal Addy]

Very nice! Much better than most 'first bowls'!

I hadn't seen that article from our very own Bob Hamilton. Thanks for posting it. May have to try that some day.

[Curt Fuller]

That is very cool! I'd be glad to help you learn how to turn a bowl if you'd teach me how to do dovetail joint like that.

[Ron Mitchell]

Curt,

Thanks for the offer...

the dovetail joint took me three hours to setup on the router table with alot of scrap pieces. but I tought the dovetail came out well.

the bowl was hard for me to complete...it broke apart three time before I got to the sanding phase. I think its because it is made up of eight segmented pieces which are potential weak points.

so far I have only made a gavel, a Christmas ornament, and about 100 or so pens on a lathe. the only class I took was for the Ornament the rest I did myself.

here is a link to photos of some of my other projects I've completed in the past three years. http://s33.photobucket.com/albums/d54/remnantswoodshop

[Bob Hamilton]

Hi, Ron:
Pretty good looking first attempt! Looks like you did a great job of getting the joints lined up when you stacked the rings. That is a great technique for getting a decent sized bowl from very little material, but unfortunately is pretty limited as to the final shape of the bowl. There just isn't enough wall thickness to get too fancy while shaping. I suppose it would be possible to cut each ring at a slightly different bevel angle to get some variation in the form, but I have never tried it.

Take care
Bob

P.S.: I am glad you gave it a try and posted your result. It really makes my day when I see that someone has gotten some use out of those articles. :)

[Bernie Weishapl]

Ron great job. The bowl is a beauty.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Ron.....Extremely nice first bowl!

[Mike Ramsey]

Very nice indeed! Does the center not have any finish or is it
the camera angle?

[Gary Herrmann]

Very cool. I must have seen that somewhere and forgotten because I've been thinking of that recently. Very nicely executed for your first.

[Mike Vickery]

Very nice. You did a great job on this.

[Ron Mitchell]

Mike Ramsey,

the bottom of the bowl has the same finnish its the sunlight & angle of the camera

[Ron Mitchell]

Mike Ramsey,

it has the same finnish on the bottom, its the angle of the camera.